1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally processing electronic quotes to sell a product or products which are generated in response to electronic requests for quotes for the product or products, and more particularly the present invention relates to filtering and/or sorting electronic quotes to sell a product or products.
2. Description of the Related Art
Choosing and purchasing products today is a time consuming and difficult task for buyers, especially corporate buyers who are responsible for purchasing large amounts of information technology (IT) equipment (e.g., desk top computers, lap-top computers, servers, software, etc.). Buyers of IT equipment must spend a large amount of time accessing numerous and different sources through a variety of means to research the equipment they need and the merchant from which they want to buy. To obtain the desired products at the least cost and with the right service options, the corporate buyer typically requests quotes from many different merchants, and subsequently selects the most competitive of the quotes generated by the merchants in response to the requests for quotes. To this end, the buyer prepares a general list of products wanted along with other information (e.g., delivery date), and sends the list to a number of merchants via either fax, e-mail, or regular mail. The merchants, in response, generate quotes which are returned to the buyer via e-mail, fax, or regular mail.
Often times, it is quite difficult due to a number of factors for the buyer to efficiently compare merchant quotes to determine the most competitive thereof. One obvious factor is that the buyer may receive a large number of quotes in response to sending a request for quotes to a large number of merchants. Additionally, the quotes can be generated in various formats and returned to the buyer via a number of different delivery mechanisms (e.g., e-mail, regular mail, fax). To facilitate quote comparison when the quotes are in distinct formats and when diverse quote delivery mechanisms are employed, buyers often resort to frustrating task of comparing quotes by placing hard copies of the quotes side by side. The variety of differing formats used by the merchants, likewise frustrates a buyers ability to compare hard copy makes side by side comparison difficult. Corresponding data (e.g., delivery dates, total price, etc.) of the quotes are often difficult to locate due to the varied formats employed. Additionally, the quotes are often inconsistent with each other and/or mismatch the request for quotes. More particularly, as noted above, the buyer initially requests quotes for a specific list products to be purchased. However, one or more or all of the response quotes may be for a list of products which are not identical by type (i.e., stock keeping unit (SKU) or product description) and/or quantity to that specified in the request for quotes. Rather, a quote may be for a list of products which include more or less products in terms of type and/or quantity than was specified in the request. Or, a quote may be for a list of products which includes substitute products for products specified in the request. These quotes mismatch what was specified in the request for quotes and complicate the comparison process for the buyer.